ULEZ London

[bd139]

You're just getting old[2]. Victor Meldrew will soon be your role model, with justification (hence the character's meme status).

I was born old. It has just taken a while to grow into it.

The interesting question is where to invest the money, both geographically[1] and otherwise.

Well it's currently festering in a few (undisclosed - not weakening my position) ETFs and multiple high interest accounts. Bit of a pain to juggle but it seems to be doing pretty well compared to my risk-crippled friends and colleagues expecting there to be an upturn. They should learn about geopolitics and read the investor feeds before throwing money into stuff.

[1] e.g. prominent hard Brexiteer's advice https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 7d2f3833c4

Yes. My capital wasn't in the UK when we went through Brexit. It was stock, which was converted to loan notes in the US (so the ex wife couldn't get them as they had a tangible value of £0) which were converted back to cash when the exchange rate was favourable. I made a lot of money from Brexit even though I voted against it.

[tggzzz]

You're just getting old[2]. Victor Meldrew will soon be your role model, with justification (hence the character's meme status).

I was born old. It has just taken a while to grow into it.

Fits with the engineering mindset: not how does X work, but how can X fail.

The interesting question is where to invest the money, both geographically[1] and otherwise.

Well it's currently festering in a few (undisclosed - not weakening my position) ETFs and multiple high interest accounts. Bit of a pain to juggle but it seems to be doing pretty well compared to my risk-crippled friends and colleagues expecting there to be an upturn. They should learn about geopolitics and read the investor feeds before throwing money into stuff.

Warren Buffet had the only sensible advice: only invest in things you understand.

[1] e.g. prominent hard Brexiteer's advice https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 7d2f3833c4

Yes. My capital wasn't in the UK when we went through Brexit. It was stock, which was converted to loan notes in the US (so the ex wife couldn't get them as they had a tangible value of £0) which were converted back to cash when the exchange rate was favourable. I made a lot of money from Brexit even though I voted against it.

Never heard of loan notes w.r.t. divorce.

[bd139]

Loan notes were handy. It's a tax avoidance scheme. Basically when the company was bought oit you can hold payments back as an IOU worth £0 until maturity. At maturity you can take the cash offer of the holder of the original amount plus interest, a partial amount or defer again. I kept deferring. It was on the divorce asset declaration as £0 and no one even noticed or questioned it.

I actually pulled £22k out when I bought the Citroen and paid some other stuff off. I assume she thought that was all they had in them

Of course they were held outside the UK so we're worth more then when they were originally generated in GBP

[tggzzz]

Wow.

I always say I would be delighted if I owed £10⁶ income tax.

I also have a liking for JK Rowling's attitude: she pay tax because the state supported her when writing HPotter, and because it is the price you pay for living in a civilised part of the world.

[bd139]

Shame that otherwise she is a piece of shit in person, figuratively and in a literary sense

[Specmaster]

OK, speaking of JK Rowling, has anyone been to the HP tour at the studios at all? I went a few years ago and thought it was pretty good.

[bd139]

Yes have been twice. Very good indeed. Certainly not what I expected.

Went in 2013 and 2019.

[Specmaster]

Yes, it was far better than I'd imagined it to be, only been the once so far, but my eldest son and his girlfriend have been a few times, and they love it.

I never really appreciated the level of details that they went to in the films, and it seems as if no expenses were spared, even down to having their very own Hogwarts Express train set, on a train.

Did you try the Butter Beer? I thought it was nice, and that they could actually market that as a soft drink

[bd139]

Yes unfortunately I did try it. It was too bloody sweet. Far too sweet for me.

My youngest did however enjoy it and was hyper for the rest of the day

IMG_1305.jpeg

[tggzzz]

The landlord situation is a completely different one. The Airbnb thing is actually unlikely because on a BTL mortgage, security conditions are stipulated which require assured shorthold tenants and with market volatility as it is, they tend to have to provide statements to the bank periodically which prove that. If the mortgage is paid off or the property is converted or an outbuilding, that is different but that only makes a fraction of the landlord and rental market up (I can't remember the percentage but it was 20-30%ish).

It isn't that rare (to my surprise), and it screwed my daughter very nastily.
...

It is still fairly rare. Just you experienced it. Covid was exceptional conditions of course so there was a general shit show. Not suggesting that it wasn't a problem for both of you personally but it's just not a usual problem for people.

A few anecdotes indicating it isn't as rare as I presumed...

There are three people in my daughter's house:

• daughter had a no-fault eviction
• S.O. had a no-fault eviction the tenancy before last
• current lodger had a no-fault eviction, together with all the other people in that house. (As did the previous lodger)

so that's a 100% hit rate, and scarcely "fairly rare"

In addition in London, daughter was previously served eviction notice on Boxing Day, explicitly timed because they knew on the eviction date she would be in hospital recovering from a very serious operation. Bastards.

Apparently the SOP is for a 1 year assured short hold tenancy, and after the 12 months it rolls over to a 1 month continuing tenancy. At which point tenants that have done everything right can be kicked out at 1 months notice. You want stability? Go to another country.

Currently no-fault evictions are 8400/quarter and rising at 38% pa! [1]
By comparison, house sale transactions are 90000/month, down by 20%.
If those continue, it will only be a couple of years before no-fault evictions exceed house sales Isn't dubious maths wonderful

With respect, I suspect it won't be too long before your daughters encounter the delights of being "generation rent". I hope there are some reforms before they suffer.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ampaigners

[bd139]

It isn't that rare (to my surprise), and it screwed my daughter very nastily.
...

It is still fairly rare. Just you experienced it. Covid was exceptional conditions of course so there was a general shit show. Not suggesting that it wasn't a problem for both of you personally but it's just not a usual problem for people.

A few anecdotes indicating it isn't as rare as I presumed...

There are three people in my daughter's house:

• daughter had a no-fault eviction
• S.O. had a no-fault eviction the tenancy before last
• current lodger had a no-fault eviction, together with all the other people in that house. (As did the previous lodger)

so that's a 100% hit rate, and scarcely "fairly rare"

In addition in London, daughter was previously served eviction notice on Boxing Day, explicitly timed because they knew on the eviction date she would be in hospital recovering from a very serious operation. Bastards.

Apparently the SOP is for a 1 year assured short hold tenancy, and after the 12 months it rolls over to a 1 month continuing tenancy. At which point tenants that have done everything right can be kicked out at 1 months notice. You want stability? Go to another country.

Currently no-fault evictions are 8400/quarter and rising at 38% pa! [1]
By comparison, house sale transactions are 90000/month, down by 20%.
If those continue, it will only be a couple of years before no-fault evictions exceed house sales Isn't dubious maths wonderful

With respect, I suspect it won't be too long before your daughters encounter the delights of being "generation rent". I hope there are some reforms before they suffer.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ampaigners

Worth noting that, using the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (urgh that hurt) dataset, the total number of rental properties is 4.61 million in the UK as of 2022 so at 8400/quarter is 33600 a year so your year on year probability of getting booted on a no fault eviction is 0.73% (to 2 d.p) or 1 in 137. That's pretty low.

With respect to assured shortholds, that's not typical now. If you rent through an agency, volatility of tenants is not something they want. They want cash flow so will run it in 12 month blocks. If you go to in independent landlord they will run 12 month + rolling.

Now there are asshole landlords for sure and I've had them but the majority of people I know who rent, which are in the tens of data points at least, have done so for very long periods of time sometimes totalling a couple of decades and rarely get any problems as such with evictions.

Ergo if you look at the actual data, it's not that bad. She's just unlucky or unskilled at navigating the crap landlords.

Also worth noting that the no fault evictions are mostly private landlords with single rentals (from NBS data I have here) downsizing due to the mortgage rate increases so they are likely actually moving back into their backup rental property and selling their main house. You are just keeping their exit plan warm and damp free. If you're going to rent either rent from someone with lots of cash (I am) or seek a corporate bastard landlord (basically an expensive housing association)

[tggzzz]

It is still fairly rare. Just you experienced it. Covid was exceptional conditions of course so there was a general shit show. Not suggesting that it wasn't a problem for both of you personally but it's just not a usual problem for people.

A few anecdotes indicating it isn't as rare as I presumed...

There are three people in my daughter's house:

• daughter had a no-fault eviction
• S.O. had a no-fault eviction the tenancy before last
• current lodger had a no-fault eviction, together with all the other people in that house. (As did the previous lodger)

so that's a 100% hit rate, and scarcely "fairly rare"

In addition in London, daughter was previously served eviction notice on Boxing Day, explicitly timed because they knew on the eviction date she would be in hospital recovering from a very serious operation. Bastards.

Apparently the SOP is for a 1 year assured short hold tenancy, and after the 12 months it rolls over to a 1 month continuing tenancy. At which point tenants that have done everything right can be kicked out at 1 months notice. You want stability? Go to another country.

Currently no-fault evictions are 8400/quarter and rising at 38% pa! [1]
By comparison, house sale transactions are 90000/month, down by 20%.
If those continue, it will only be a couple of years before no-fault evictions exceed house sales Isn't dubious maths wonderful

With respect, I suspect it won't be too long before your daughters encounter the delights of being "generation rent". I hope there are some reforms before they suffer.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ampaigners

Worth noting that, using the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (urgh that hurt) dataset, the total number of rental properties is 4.61 million in the UK as of 2022 so at 8400/quarter is 33600 a year so your year on year probability of getting booted on a no fault eviction is 0.73% (to 2 d.p) or 1 in 137. That's pretty low.

Comparing bad-things-in-a-year with good-things-in-a-lifetime is bound to make things look good.

Analogy: cancers per year 375,000, population 66,000,000, therefore 0.56% is pretty low and ignorable. Better comparison is that there are ~650k births/deaths per year - and 50% doesn't look so good.

With respect to assured shortholds, that's not typical now. If you rent through an agency, volatility of tenants is not something they want. They want cash flow so will run it in 12 month blocks. If you go to in independent landlord they will run 12 month + rolling.

Now there are asshole landlords for sure and I've had them but the majority of people I know who rent, which are in the tens of data points at least, have done so for very long periods of time sometimes totalling a couple of decades and rarely get any problems as such with evictions.

Youngsters move job/location, so - even if they had the money - aren't able to get into such stable relationships. Then add the consequences of zero hours contracts and the gig economy.

Ergo if you look at the actual data, it's not that bad. She's just unlucky or unskilled at navigating the crap landlords.

When given - effectively - a surprise 2 weeks notice ending in hospital, plus the general non-availability of accommodation affordable by a youngster, there's very little choice.

And my daughter was in a financially good position compared with many others.

Also worth noting that the no fault evictions are mostly private landlords with single rentals (from NBS data I have here) downsizing due to the mortgage rate increases so they are likely actually moving back into their backup rental property and selling their main house. You are just keeping their exit plan warm and damp free. If you're going to rent either rent from someone with lots of cash (I am) or seek a corporate bastard landlord (basically an expensive housing association)

Analogy: why do you always have shit employers? I never did, with the sole exception being a fintech company

[bd139]

Comparing bad-things-in-a-year with good-things-in-a-lifetime is bound to make things look good.

Analogy: cancers per year 375,000, population 66,000,000, therefore 0.56% is pretty low and ignorable. Better comparison is that there are ~650k births/deaths per year - and 50% doesn't look so good.

Well 99% of statistical analysis is how you choose to pose the question and write the interpretation so of course (and other statistics like 99% of X are made up )

I think mine was more Guardian and yours is more Daily Mail . Mine might be quantitively incorrect but it qualitatively it is.

With respect to assured shortholds, that's not typical now. If you rent through an agency, volatility of tenants is not something they want. They want cash flow so will run it in 12 month blocks. If you go to in independent landlord they will run 12 month + rolling.

Now there are asshole landlords for sure and I've had them but the majority of people I know who rent, which are in the tens of data points at least, have done so for very long periods of time sometimes totalling a couple of decades and rarely get any problems as such with evictions.

Youngsters move job/location, so - even if they had the money - aren't able to get into such stable relationships. Then add the consequences of zero hours contracts and the gig economy.

Well that need citing for sure. You can get 6 month shorthold tenancies too of course as well as casual room rentals. The demand/supply dynamics of that aren't favourable though. This is why I intend to keep an excess of rooms available. Also handy for storing crap in.

When given - effectively - a surprise 2 weeks notice ending in hospital, plus the general non-availability of accommodation affordable by a youngster, there's very little choice.

And my daughter was in a financially good position compared with many others.

That is usually how the universe chooses to smite you. You get used to it eventually.

Analogy: why do you always have shit employers? I never did, with the sole exception being a fintech company

I intentionally choose shit employers. It's easier to extract large amounts of money out of them to buy houses with lots of rooms. I mean I'm not going to earn any money solving problems if I go to a place with only trivial problems am I?

[Specmaster]

Apparently, some 60,000 cars a day are paying the £12.50 a day ULEZ charge, so working on an average of those cars only being used for going to and from work, 5 days a week and for an average of 48 weeks a year allowing for holidays etc, that means that £12.50 x 5 x 60,000 x 48 = £180,000,000, thats a staggering £180 million that TFL are raking in as a minimum, not a bad little moneymaker.

[bd139]

Apparently, some 60,000 cars a day are paying the £12.50 a day ULEZ charge, so working on an average of those cars only being used for going to and from work, 5 days a week and for an average of 48 weeks a year allowing for holidays etc, that means that £12.50 x 5 x 60,000 x 48 = £180,000,000, thats a staggering £180 million that TFL are raking in as a minimum, not a bad little moneymaker.

That sounds like a lot of money but it really isn't in the scale of things. Some magnitude to give you an idea.

That is £1 for every 4 journeys on TFL infrastructure.

£180m is 2% of TFL's entire revenue.

£180m is 0.6% of my company's revenue.

£180m is 0.0086% of my company's asset value

And no one has ever heard of us

[Specmaster]

Apparently, some 60,000 cars a day are paying the £12.50 a day ULEZ charge, so working on an average of those cars only being used for going to and from work, 5 days a week and for an average of 48 weeks a year allowing for holidays etc, that means that £12.50 x 5 x 60,000 x 48 = £180,000,000, thats a staggering £180 million that TFL are raking in as a minimum, not a bad little moneymaker.

That sounds like a lot of money but it really isn't in the scale of things. Some magnitude to give you an idea.

That is £1 for every 4 journeys on TFL infrastructure.

£180m is 2% of TFL's entire revenue.

£180m is 0.6% of my company's revenue.

£180m is 0.0086% of my company's asset value

And no one has ever heard of us

True, but then again you are used to dealing with large numbers, so for you, it seems small change, for me, it's a massive amount, and I'd be very happy to take just a mere .125% of that amount, it would be life changing for me and millions of others I'm sure. It's all a matter of perspective

[bd139]

True, but then again you are used to dealing with large numbers, so for you, it seems small change, for me, it's a massive amount, and I'd be very happy to take just a mere .125% of that amount, it would be life changing for me and millions of others I'm sure. It's all a matter of perspective

Well technically that .125% would be life changing for .00119% (to 3 s.f) of the population. That wouldn't be fair would it?